Cadmium telluride-solar powering its way to a semiconductor advantage

Cadmium telluride is a compound semiconductor. It is used in solar cells, X-ray detectors, and gamma ray detectors. Cadmium telluride is well suited for use in solar cells, because its energy band gap is a good match with the solar spectrum. This means it has one of the highest potential efficiencies in solar cells. Also, because cadmium telluride is a thin film, it allows solar cells to be manufactured more cheaply than other materials. Because semiconductors have many applications, there has been a lot of research on different materials and their properties. Most research has been done on silicon and germanium, with silicon currently considered the most general purpose semiconductor. However, research has been done on other "high performance" semiconductors for specific applications. Cadmium telluride falls into this category.